Multiform Cost & Efficiency

[PaycheckHero]

This is definitely from the "a day late and a dollar short" file, since it involves a change from 4e to 5e that looks problematic to me (and the 6e version looks to have the same problems). There doesn't seem to be a forum search function, but google site-specific search works and I can't find any discussion or answers for the problem (or at least what I claim is a problem) discussed below (pointers to anything I missed gratefully accepted).

 

It looks like I'm getting back into gaming after a long absence (I seem to have successfully raised up budding players of my own now). Most of my hero gaming was 4e; I used 5e (not revised, it wasn't out) for reference toward the end of my gaming career, but didn't really go through all the differences (which weren't great anyway). I've now bought the 6e rules, and while reading them discovered that multiform is radically different than in 4e. Checking my other books, it appears that the crucial change happened in 5e and I just didn't notice.

 

In 4e IIRC multiform worked something like this: your primary form is the one with the greatest total cost. Your other forms can't exceed the total cost of the primary *minus the cost of multiform*. The first additional form is bought 1/5, each additional is bought 1/10. This makes sense to me--I suspect the cost structure was modeled on a multipower with ultra (fixed) slots, in that you can think of the total cost minus multiform as the size of the reserve, and the multiform cost as the cost of one fixed slot per character (so that the first additional form really costs 1/10 for that form and 1/10 for another slot for the primary form). It's abusable, but at least the computation is in-line with a multipower. It also ensures that, like all other constructs that let you change what a point is being used for, you give up raw power for the flexibility. None of the forms have as many points to spend on powers as would a character without multiform.

 

5e seems to have radically changed this cost structure. The crucial change is that the forms are built on the same base points as the primary *including the multiform cost*. It isn't specified how many disads they can take, and the only obvious number is "the same as the primary form." If that's the case, then the problem is that multiform just became essentially free. Say I build a 350 character (character #1) without multiform. Now I can write up another 350 character (Character #0) who puts 70 points into multiform (change to character #1) and is defined as the base character. Character #0 is completely free. He's not as powerful as #1, thanks to the cost of the multiform, but a 280 pt form with different abilities than the other is an amazingly useful thing to get for free. But it gets worse--I can double the forms with a +5 adder, so if #0 pays 75 points, I get two forms with a full 350 points to spend, and so on. This seems to break the fundamental hero assumption that you don't get stuff for free, as well as the assumption that you have to give up some power for flexibility. No powergamer would ever write up a non-multiform character. So that suggests that the assumption that the forms can all have the same number of disad points as the base form is incorrect, but if so there is no guidance on how to balance it and no other obvious number besides the base form's disad total.

 

So I thought this must have gotten fixed in 6e (or 5er, which I don't have), but it appears to clearly state that what I claim is the problematic interpretation is the correct construction. "A character’s forms are built on the same Total Points (including Matching Complications) as the true form (or fewer points, if the player so desires)." That seems to make it very clear that I can create nearly unlimited numbers of forms that are as powerful as a non-multiform character under the campaign rules, as long as there is one that isn't (because it pays the multiform cost).

 

So either I'm missing something, or this power is simply broken in 5e+. It's hard to imagine the latter, but I can't see anything I'm missing. I'd appreciate a pointer to something I missed, or an explanation of why this isn't a problem in practice, or a discussion of what people actually do in their campaigns if they have houseruled multiform, or anything else that sheds light on this. As it stands now, I couldn't allow 5e+ multiform at all. I'd either have to use the 4e rule, or simply disallow multiform and build the equivalent by hand with other constructs (which is not very friendly to beginners).

 

Thoughts?

[ghost-angel]

The 'same number of points as base form' includes Disadvantages in 5E - if you're base form is 350 points + 50 Points of Disadvantages then your Multiform alternates are the same - 350 Points + 50 Points of Disadvantages.

 

The major change from 4 to 5 is that you can now have Multiforms built on higher points than the Base Character, which is useful in many genres - specifically Fantasy.

 

I don't see anything as getting stuff for free - after all the GM still has to approve your munchkiny shenanigans - and if all you're doing is trying to get 280 more 'points worth of stuff' with a Base and Standard Superhero without any decent reasoning behind it, well - meh, you can cheat the system in a million different ways, congrats you win a cookie.

 

What you're really missing is that this allows a number of ideas to be created and letting the Player and GM decide what's going to work for their campaign. It's cost structure falls in with a number of other similar costs in the system (Followers, Bases, Vehicles) and the Doubling Rule (+5 gets you x2 the number of things). In practice, it has worked just fine for me and the groups I play with.

[CrosshairCollie]

If the GM thinks the character is abusive, he says 'no', just like with every other single power construction in the game. That's kinda his job in HERO.

 

HERO is the least balanced game system EVER. It has next to no internal balance ('the system says no'). Almost all of its balance is external ('the GM says no'). Saying 'That Multiform build you have is abusive' is no different from saying 'No, you can't spend all 400 character points on an Area of Effect Personally Immune Energy Blast'.

[ghost-angel]

I wouldn't say Hero is unbalanced - I would say that Hero is very open ended and allows for such an extremely wide number of ideas that it requires external input before any one game can use the internal balance put in place (there are certain internal consistencies that lean towards balance).

[JackValhalla]

I understood that all forms of Multiform had the same base points (in Standard Superheroic, 200, for example). And that if you built a Multiform to have, say, 900 points in it (this comes from a RL event, but I swear it wasn't me), then the character needs to take 700 pts in Disadvantages.

 

As for "free forms" that OP discussed, I'm learning about this myself. I'm currently designing a villain character who has 32 forms, instant change, and it... well, it's got a lot of potential for abuse. Also, this character is winding up being a lot more trouble than she's worth, 32 separate character sheets are a lot to design, and a lot to keep track of. Accidental Change mitigates some of the abuse by taking control of the change away from the player, but in the end it's really down to the GM to shut this sort of thing down.

 

That's part of what scares me about GMing a game... I've got min-max instincts, and poor impulse control. If I'm GM, there's nobody to overrule me but Steve. (Thanks Steve, for overruling some of my ideas in the past)

 

[pruttm]

And those Disadvantages may be worth less points on a duplicate than on a non-duplicating character.

[ghost-angel]

I understood that all forms of Multiform had the same base points (in Standard Superheroic' date=' 200, for example). And that if you built a Multiform to have, say, 900 points in it (this comes from a RL event, but I swear it wasn't me), then the character needs to take 700 pts in Disadvantages. [/quote']

 

Yes, this is true. And in 6E the option to not take as many Matching Complications as need for the over cost can be done with an additional 1:5 Cost for the extra points.

 

It is, in my opinion, a poorly thought out control measure that needlessly adds to the complexity of the issue.

[PaycheckHero]

I don't see anything as getting stuff for free

 

For (almost) any PC X without MF, a PC using MF exists costing the same number of points which has a form identical(*) to X, plus other forms. How are those other forms not free? If you have a superteam with a brick, a martial artist, and an energy blaster, how is it not free points if I can write up a character with forms as powerful as each of them, plus some others that do things none of them can do (mystic, mentalist, skill-master detective, whatever you like)? In other hero constructs, you have to pay for flexibility with power--notably (because 4e multiform seems to be based on the cost of a multipower with ultra (fixed) slots) in the slot cost for a multipower or the control cost for a pool. 5e eliminated the control-cost analog for multiform.

 

(*) Technically, the disads/complications may need to be re-written. This doesn't affect the argument since Hero doesn't let you go above the campaign's total point limit just because you took extra disads. Hero uses total points as the base limitation on starting PCs, not base points, and the point being made is that I can buy the same powers with the same total points. There is a better argument involving special power limitations for certain characters, thus the technical "(almost)".

 

after all the GM still has to approve your munchkiny shenanigans

 

Sigh. If that answer were the cure-all that some people try to pretend it is, we wouldn't need points at all--after all, the GM has to approve every character, so just write down the powers you want and let him sort it out. Of course, the entire point of hero's character generation system is to avoid doing that when possible, and then let the GM backstop the cases where it wasn't possible.

 

As for munchkiny shenanigans, the case where I noticed this was writing up an NPC, and discovered that MF invites abuse. If I can find the "abuse me" sign, so can others, and I like to find them first. As it is, I will probably simulate multiform for that character with other constructs and insist PCs do the same, but I don't really like that because MF is easier for beginners to use. I'd rather have a less problematic multiform, if I can find it.

 

What you're really missing is that this allows a number of ideas to be created and letting the Player and GM decide what's going to work for their campaign.

 

No, because by your logic all things are already allowed anyway. If the rules don't accept it, you simply ask the GM to approve it anyway, which he can always do. You can't have it both ways--if the rules shouldn't help the GM make those calls by red-flagging likely abusive characters, making them cost overthe campaign limit, then you can't turn around and insist that now the GM needs permission to accept characters that don't point-balance, and he couldn't do that until MF was re-written.

 

It's cost structure falls in with a number of other similar costs in the system (Followers, Bases, Vehicles) and the Doubling Rule (+5 gets you x2 the number of things).

 

No, it surely isn't. First, I said nothing about the doubling rule. The base mechanic seems to be broken, so I didn't want to get distracted. Second, followers, bases, and vehicles are not PCs, whereas MF forms most certainly are. And it is out of line with other constructs that let you spend your points more flexibly. If I have 60pts to spend on an attack, I can get 12d6 of straight EB, or a multipower with an 50pt reserve and two 10d6 ultra slots (perhaps one is against PD and one against ED). The point is that the price of the flexibility was that I couldn't buy as much raw power. The same logic is behind variable advantage, the control cost on a VPP, and so on.

 

Also, consider 6e duplication, where the precise problem I'm discussing is ruled out: "...unless the GM permits otherwise, for ease of use all Duplicates must “pay for” the cost of the base

character’s Duplication ability. Otherwise, the Duplicates would end up with more points to spend on other abilities than the base character himself has." (v1p198) Multiform's equivalent limitation was removed in 5e, which is what is mystifying. I'm likely to apply that logic to MF before I throw it out entirely and see if that fixes it acceptably.

 

In practice, it has worked just fine for me and the groups I play with.

 

Part of the reason for posting is that I assume it has worked for other people, and I'm trying to figure out why. As it stands now, there is no way I'd allow 5e+ multiform in any campaign of mine. I'm fishing to see if there is a good answer to the above objections I'm missing, or to determine what the logic was behind the re-write.

[PaycheckHero]

HERO is the least balanced game system EVER. It has next to no internal balance ('the system says no'). Almost all of its balance is external ('the GM says no'). Saying 'That Multiform build you have is abusive' is no different from saying 'No' date=' you can't spend all 400 character points on an Area of Effect Personally Immune Energy Blast'.[/quote']

 

Given that the rules say "no" to your supposed analogy, your argument more or less defeats itself. In any event, the last thing I want to do is discuss it here. Could you take the "hero isn't balanced" argument to another thread? Your issue isn't going to get resolved here, but trying to resolve it here certainly could make it impossible to shed some light on the topic at hand. Thanks.

[Killer Shrike]

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YES, YOU ARE CORRECT

 

@PaycheckHero, to your point:

• Yes, Multiform can be very easily abused.
  
• Yes, it is intrinsically NOT self-balancing.
  
• Yes, without restriction or "parental supervision", a Multiform based player character can easily make other player characters irrelevant.
  

 

 

 

This is not a situation new to 5e or 6e; rather the previous artificial attempts to mechanically check this situation which failed to do so and also made everything more complicated and also interfered with some concepts that were not necessarily abusive was removed as unnecessary noise that was contributing to a bigger problem...the actual root practical problem of "balance" as well as the created problem of "mechanical interference".

 

Said another way, even in 4e, the real check on Multiform's abusiveness was still GM's fiat despite the mechanical limitations. The pre-5e true form limitation just a) forced a min maxer to jump thru more hoops and put an upper limit on such abuse...but that limit was still so extreme that it did not materially matter.

 

The poor mechanical "solution" was in some ways was worse than the current "let the GM figure it out" approach as it provided an illusion that the system was handling the situation (it wasn't really) and such characters were legal (they were) and "fair" (they generally were not), and that it did not really rely entirely upon the GM's arbitration (though actually to be effective it did).

 

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RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND OPPORTUNITY COST MUSINGS

 

One could argue that the very idea of Multiform is intrinsically unbalanced, in a game where a "character" is really a collection of standard and custom mechanics paid for with a finite budget of a controlled resource, wherein competitive value is driven primarily by opportunity costs (to be good at X consumes budget that can not also be allocated to Y). Thus any ability that allows the same finite resource to be re-allocated at need is optimal. This can be counterbalanced by a premium charged on the resource to purchase such an ability, but assessing what kind or how much of a premium is a slippery slope and difficult to balance against the current state of the "market" or venue of competition (in game play in this case); this is normal for markup based values...once you are assessing value, the decision points that drive your assessment will ultimately be arbitrary and also subject to trend-driven volatility or adjustment.

 

And so on.

 

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MOVING ON

 

So, if we can just take it as given that YES, Multiform is NOT intrinsically balanced or fair in any objective, unregulated way, the argument can move on to the following:

 

IS MULTIFORM A VIABLE AND USEFUL CONCEPT?

 

1) Is Multiform even a valid concept? I.e. should it be allowed, or should constructs like "Only In HERO Id" which attempt to make abilities that are only used by one "form" or mode or state of existence cost less so that more of them can be bought with the standard allocation of points and which are then just composed together as needed to simulate other forms.

 

Personally, while the limitation based approach can be made to work for one or two forms that share a common foundation, it gets unwieldy very fast, very poorly deals with complications and reduced characteristics, and is more or less effective depending on if the character has a lot of expensive abilities (where limitations have a greater net effect) or a lot of very cheap abilities such as skills (where limitations have lessened effect in general but where the .5 rounding in the character's favor rule becomes especially advantageous).

 

For my part, I find having an ability that allows separate distinct character sheets is a good thing for the system in general and is usually "cleaner" mechanically.

 

ARE THE CURRENT RULES USABLE AS IS, WITH GM REGULATION?

 

2) Is it possible, using Multiform as written PLUS reasonable regulation by the GM, to make fun and generally balanced characters?

 

In other words, can the current "RAW / rules as written" version be employed successfully by a GM willing to say "no" to things that they feel will be unfair / unfun / unacceptable in their own campaigns?

 

Obviously, the answer is yes in my opinion. Reasonable minds might differ.

 

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HOW I REGULATE MULTIFORM...USUALLY

 

From a practical perspective, here are a few of the things that I have employed to allow MF based characters to successfully be played in real campaigns by several different players (in fact, by coincidence 2 of the 4 PC's in my current campaign We Too Unto Darkness are Multiform based "were" people).

 

POINT CAP

 

1) I generally don't allow a form in a multiform to have more points than the base character unless there is some appropriately strong limitation on the high-point form's usage /existence.

 

This reasonably addresses the "overpowered" form concern, but not the "diversity / flexibility" concern.

 

XP THROTTLING

 

2) I enforce the 'every 6 points of xp allows 1 point to be put into MF' option.

 

This reasonably prevents extreme escalation after play starts.

 

FORM CHARACTER IS USUALLY IN IS TRUE FORM

 

3) I generally require the form that the character spends the most time in to be the character's "true form". At character creation this is generally concept driven as a best guess / intent. If I have some concern that one of the "non-true" forms is going to be dominant I'll require various checks to be put in place, usually starting with Accidental Change OUT of the suspect form, and / or some undesirable psychological or physical complications, and ramp up from there. If I'm still not comfortable, then I take that as a strong indication to not allow the character concept and say "NO".

 

If after play progresses it turns out a MF based character spends most of their time in a form other than their "true form" and if I have some balance concern, I will first contrive situations that force or strongly encourage the character to deal with them in their "true form". If that fails, I'll have a very straightforward discussion with the player and point out that they are abusing the rules and give them the choice to either a) amend their behavior, re-work the character to move the Multiform cost to the form that the character actually treats as default (and drop an equal number of points worth of stuff to pay for it), or c) retire the character.

 

In practice, since most rpg's decompose to "talking" and "fighting", or "story mode" and "combat mode"...the most common abuse by naive players is for the supposed "true form" to be "story mode guy" with social / intellect skills and things useful outside of combat, and "combat mode guy" with stats, cv, and damage. But, its not my first barbeque. This can remedied by requiring the forms to be well balanced and not one trick pony specialists allowing the composite character to act like a swiss army knife with a form specialized for every encounter.

 

However, some multiform concepts naturally lend themselves to specialized forms; in such a case I usually go the other way and make the forms not just _specialized_ to a particular situation but also _flawed_ in a thematically relevant way that makes using that form a decision with potential consequences. The classic examples of the berserking combat form, the kleptomaniac venal thief form, the impractical academic smart form, the feral animal form, the egomaniacal dispassionate cosmic powered entity form, etc illustrate this sort of an approach.

 

This reasonably addresses the "my true form is a vegetative state invalid who is allergic to life, but that's ok because I spend most of my time in AwesomeDude form" problem, though obviously the degree of GM fiat required will not sit well with everyone.

 

GUARDING AGAINST UNFAIR VERSATILITY RENDERING OTHER TEAM MEMBERS IRRELEVANT

 

4) As a general rule not unique to multiform based characters, I usually strongly discourage players from "stepping on each others shticks", and strongly encourage differentiation, "signature" abilities that are distinct to a character, role diversity, and so forth. So, if a player wants to make a multiform based character who is good at something, if there is already a player with a character that "covers" that concept I'll make sure that even if I allow the multiform character to have a competing form that its not as good as the already extant character in that area.

 

Similarly, if a new player enters the game or an existing player wants to make a new character, and that character would compete with a form on a multiform based character already in the game, I would assess whether to a) allow it and if so make sure that the new non-multiform based character is better / more effective than the multiform form in the same concept area.

 

Again, this requires direct GM tinkering to manage, and I realize that different GM's have different comfort levels for this sort of thing.

 

This approach reasonably addresses the "multiform man makes everyone else irrelevant" problem, though imperfectly. This is generally the problem with Multiform that I personally am most concerned about and keep the closest eye upon.

 

 

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SUMMARY

 

So, for me, in the final analysis I find the deregulated version of MF in 5e / 6e to be easier to use and manage as it removed the mechanical interference and allows me as the GM to make decisions about what to allow or disallow without getting in my way.

 

Ultimately however, if you don't like the change and think that Multiform should cost more points or have further point checks, you are free to assess your own premium or apply whatever checks you like. This essentially just formalizes "GM's fiat" for your campaigns and is not fundamentally different from less formal checks such as those I've mentioned, or ghost-angels position, or any other GM's preferred means for dealing with the fundamentally complicated and difficult to administer concept of characters that have multiple states of existence.

 

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WHY ISN'T MULTIFORM A STOP SIGN POWER? COLOR ME CLUELESS

 

The part that mystifies me more than the potential point imbalances, is that Multiform is not a STOP SIGN power, nor even a YIELD power, yet is easily one of the most complicated and most powerful base powers in the game.

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And also, good luck w/ your ongoing efforts to get back into gaming!

[Sabelkatten]

Multiform and Duplication are two of my favorite powers.

 

They were completely wrecked in 5th.

 

The best idea is really to just ignore the 5th/6th versions and use the old 4th versions for those two powers. There are some modifiers in the later versions that are a good idea to add, but that's about it.

 

4th MF/duplication is a bit trickier mathematically, but if you survived high school math it shouldn't be hard to figure out the formulas you need and do it on a simple calculator (or excel).

 

The big difference is that it takes a LOT of work to break the 4th versions of those powers, and attempts are pretty easy to spot. But the GM should be pretty lenient with allowing limitations to keep the costs manageable for PCs who don't try to game the system, otherwise they're going to be quite weak...

 

Quick fixes for 5th/6th are to 1) generally deny any forms with more than campaign limit points (there are some workable concepts for it, actually), 2) have the power cost be paid by all forms, and 3) change the "x2 forms for 5 points" to x2 forms for a +1/2 advantage (Multiform) or +1 duplicate for +1/2 advantage (Duplication). That makes them much harder to abuse.

[PaycheckHero]

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YES' date=' YOU ARE CORRECT[/size'] @PaycheckHero, to your point:

• Yes, without restriction or "parental supervision", a Multiform based player character can easily make other player characters irrelevant.
  

This is not a situation new to 5e or 6e;

 

I'm actually aware that 4e MF was extremely easy to abuse, I just figured if I said that I'd start two separate arguments and not have much chance of figuring out "what were they thinking" in 5e. My old gaming group actually banned MF outright in 4e (and maybe earlier if it existed before 4e, I joined about the time 4e came out but they'd been playing since probably 2e or 3e), in any form, after a little incident with a werewolf detective who was apparently the most effective character in the party both in and out of combat (Jaguar in the BBB looked suspiciously similar, but I never actually ran Jaguar to see if he was indeed unbalanced), and that's probably a sane thing to do. It's also why I hadn't noticed what happened in 5e until now--I just didn't have a reason to read the 5e version that closely.

 

However, doing it with other constructs tends to be rough on beginners who didn't even know enough to think of abusing it and ended up with a character with a big multipower or VPP with funky restrictions to simulate MF. My wife's first supers character was a metamorph, and we ended up building her a VPP with some restrictions so she had to write up each form she could change to--basically, MF built with the VPP rules. It worked for that particular character, but of course it was clunky for her to build a new form. So now that that group is long gone, my main motivation was to work out the consequences of re-introducing the power just to make characters with multiple forms mechanically easier to play, and decide if I was willing to accept those consequences.

 

rather the previous artificial attempts to mechanically check this situation which failed to do so and also made everything more complicated and also interfered with some concepts that were not necessarily abusive was removed as unnecessary noise

 

Hmm. That's the first sane explanation of what what might have happened in 5e--thanks. That's one thing I was looking for. Well--it would be sane if it were a stop sign power with a paragraph or so explaining why, as you mentioned below. As it is, it's designed mostly to make new GMs suffer. I know if I were trying hero for the first time and had someone bring in an insane MF character I'd simply lose all confidence in the system (in fact, that happened the first couple of times I ran GURPS and I decided it wasn't worth it, fair to the system or not). That's why I don't like removing all restrictions and throwing a newcomer to the wolves in a way most powers don't. A stop sign would at least be a warning.

 

Thus any ability that allows the same finite resource to be re-allocated at need is optimal. This can be counterbalanced by a premium charged on the resource to purchase such an ability, but assessing what kind or how much of a premium is a slippery slope and difficult to balance against the current state of the "market" or venue of competition

 

Sure. I think what makes MF worse than other flexibility constructs, though, is probably the fact that it's price is independent of the similarity between the forms. If you use a framework, the premium on the construct is proportional to the number of re-allocatable points. That's not true with MF. Duplication seems to have the same problem, but at least it suggests some kind of penalty if the dupes aren't all the same. Duplication also at least does something that no other construct does, while you can simulate MF if you have to.

 

One thing I'd thought of was to re-write the power so you split the character into a sheet of things common to all forms and a pool that can vary between forms, and paid based on the size of the variable pool (perhaps 1/5 rather than 1/10). That's not a lot better than just admitting that you're just re-inventing a multipower or VPP with particular limitations, however, and I'm not sure it would be easier to use (the only real reason to have it at that point).

 

None of that, and I agree probably no mechanical rule, would be able to identify characters that are unusually effective because of the breadth of the forms--in fact, that's campaign dependent, since nothing is effective unless the GM gives you situations where you can use it.

 

For my part, I find having an ability that allows separate distinct character sheets is a good thing for the system in general and is usually "cleaner" mechanically.

 

Ease of use is the only reason I wanted to re-visit the MF issue. For Teresa's metamorph we basically wrote a VPP with a set of modifiers (that I don't recall at the moment) that didn't let her mix & match between forms, so that she actually did have a separate sheet for each form. The VPP was really just providing the cost structure. That said, it isn't clear if it would have worked without heavy-handed refereeing for a munchkin. (The nice thing about playing with girls is that I don't encounter many of them that are serious munchkins.)

 

ARE THE CURRENT RULES USABLE AS IS, WITH GM REGULATION? 2) Is it possible, using Multiform as written PLUS reasonable regulation by the GM, to make fun and generally balanced characters?

 

I guess the issue is that Hero's implicit design is generally to provide balance where possible, so that the GM is mainly backstopping things that are too difficult to eliminate mechanically rather than making a call on every single feature of a character (which gets very tiring with a group of clueless munchkins). The 4e MF tried, successfully or not, to eliminate the obvious problem of having many forms all as powerful as other characters' single forms, though not the more subjective "always in the spotlight" problem of detectives with were-forms and mentalists who can hulk out ("My character concept is what if Bruce Banner were a mentalist! I'm just trying to play my concept!"). Currently MF doesn't obey that implicit rule. To some degree you can use any rule with sufficient refereeing, it's a question of effort. I guess to me, it isn't clear whether MF is worth the extra effort.

 

HOW I REGULATE MULTIFORM...USUALLY From a practical perspective, here are a few of the things that I have employed to allow MF based characters to successfully be played in real campaigns by several different players

 

That's the other thing I was interested in, thanks. You did a good job of listing the main ways to abuse Multiform, which is handy to have in one place.

 

This approach reasonably addresses the "multiform man makes everyone else irrelevant" problem, though imperfectly. This is generally the problem with Multiform that I personally am most concerned about and keep the closest eye upon.

 

Yeah, a lot of nasty ideas fall under that heading. I do like your approach of thinking more directly in terms of turf protection for the players, that is a constant theme in a lot of MF abuses and I like the idea that it is better to say so explicitly. Thanks for taking the time to write up so many details. Since most of my gaming was in 4th ed days with a group that didn't use MF, I don't have as much practice tossing out bad MF ideas.

 

WHY ISN'T MULTIFORM A STOP SIGN POWER? COLOR ME CLUELESS

 

Yes. I found it unfathomable as soon as I tried to use 5e+ MF. It should have been a stop sign power in 4e, let alone 5e+.

 

And also, good luck w/ your ongoing efforts to get back into gaming!

 

Thanks! I never pushed my geekly little hobbies on my kids, but my oldest is very eager to game so I think I may have raised up players for myself. :-)

 

I ran across your hero website a while back and found it pretty useful, BTW. We never liked the standard magic system in FH 4e and always rolled our own, so I'm going to have to look over your long list and see how others have done it.

[PaycheckHero]

4th MF/duplication is a bit trickier mathematically, but if you survived high school math it shouldn't be hard to figure out the formulas you need and do it on a simple calculator (or excel).

 

I'm OK with math. For fun, I once proposed that we create a system that used the eigenvalues of a Hermitian operator to determine the probabilities of the various outcomes of any given action, represented as eigenvectors in some appropriate vector space. It wasn't as popular an idea as you'd think. :-)

 

The big difference is that it takes a LOT of work to break the 4th versions of those powers,

 

This I disagree on--you just can't do it by actually matching the total points of everyone else in the party. You can still have a combat monster form and a skillmaster form, which can be efficient enough to make up for the lost points and therefore unfair to the players that didn't take MF unless it's an all were- party or something (hey, World of Darkness Hero).

 

Quick fixes for 5th/6th are to 1) generally deny any forms with more than campaign limit points (there are some workable concepts for it, actually),

 

I thought that went without saying. :-)

 

2) have the power cost be paid by all forms, and

 

I thought of that, mainly because there is 6e precedent with duplication and also because it's functionally what 4e does (it just says subtract off the MF points--if you do that, you might as well just pay the cost in each character, it will rarely make a difference and arguably makes more sense (the forms can change back, so they're exerciseing the MF power, so either they have it as well or they're using a power possessed by another character who doesn't, at the moment, exist, which is conceptually stranger--and an opponent should be able to use a MF drain on any of the forms if I can justify MF drain at all).

 

3) change the "x2 forms for 5 points" to x2 forms for a +1/2 advantage (Multiform) or +1 duplicate for +1/2 advantage (Duplication). That makes them much harder to abuse.

 

I hadn't even given much thought to abuses of the doubling rule (except that it obviously magnifies any weakness in the base power), but 4e's version is linear not exponential and greatly resembles that (except the effective advantage is more like 0.1). I don't have to worry about it unless I decide to keep the base power in some form anyway.

[Sabelkatten]

The skill master/combat monster MF was the most obvious thing I was thinking of... ;-) But as noted it's quite easy to spot, and pretty easy to handle for the GM as well. Just require all forms to follow campaign guidelines when it comes to power and any serious player should end up with a reasonable PC (true powergamers will of course still try to break things, but they don't really need MF/Dupl. to do that either!).

 

About the doubling; It's absolutely horrible for Duplication, but for MF it's just that 5 points is to cheap. Extra forms with MF gets progressively less useful (just how many flying blaster forms can you have before you start repeating yourself?), so it's not unreasonable to have the number of forms double. Duplication, OTOH, essentially multiplies your power by the number of duplicates. Sure there are some practical limits, but I can dig up the old test I did with IIRC 1024 duplicates that could waste a whole Enemies book in less than one turn... :-P

 

[ghost-angel]

The rule book is not your games babysitter. And it shouldn't be.

 

The more options that are available to the game table the more types of games can be played and the better a toolkit the system becomes. It's more prudent for the table to learn what limitations it wants than for artificial ones imposed by a system trying to 'balance' itself with poor kludges to do so.

 

I like the 5E and onwards Multiform much better.

[Lucius]

Has anyone ran with a rule making all forms pay for the Multiform, and is there any reason not to do it that way?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Multiform to Palindromedary

 

 

 

 

[Sabelkatten]

Has anyone ran with a rule making all forms pay for the Multiform' date=' and is there any reason not to do it that way? Lucius Alexander Multiform to Palindromedary [/quote']

 

It's one of my "You should do this!" suggestions above. :-)

[psyber624]

Has anyone ran with a rule making all forms pay for the Multiform, and is there any reason not to do it that way?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Multiform to Palindromedary

 

 

 

 

The one issue I see with that is that it really hurts the Hulk/Captain Marvel type concepts. Where you have a Super Powerful form and a normal human form. This concept is not trying to abuse the system but would wind up limited to a much smaller (and therefore less competitive) Super Form. (If both Billy and Captain have to pay for the Multiform, Captain is only a 320pt hero in a 400 pt world.)

 

The other issue with that is that "paying" for the multiform can be reduced as a penalty by simply loading up on limitations as always.

[PaycheckHero]

The rule book is not your games babysitter. And it shouldn't be.

 

That kind of thinking seems to have made Hero into a game with few new players sometime after my primary playing days during the 4e era. Sometime in the 5e era the game became infeasible to pick up from the published material. It may well be good for experienced players. How is it good for the long-term survival and heath of the system?

 

The more options that are available to the game table the more types of games can be played and the better a toolkit the system becomes.

 

That argument is absurd. Here is a system with more options available than Hero: you tell me what you try to do, and I tell you what happens. Sometimes, maybe, I have you roll dice. Or maybe not, it might not be that kind of game. The point is, the very idea of rules-as-a-toolkit implies taking options off the table. It is one thing to argue about what those things should be, but "the more options available, the better a toolkit the system becomes" is self-defeating. I'm also always amazed by how many people argue as though the GM can say "no" to otherwise legal constructs, but not "yes" to otherwise illegal constructs. If the system is to survive, the rules shouldn't aim only to help experienced players who don't need it. They should help the inexperienced who haven't yet decided if they're going to continue playing it.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it again, I have actually thought about writing up a set of fastplay rules for precisely that purpose. There are, however, obstacles to that, not the least of which is that Hero games would doubtless not approve.

[bigbywolfe]

The rule book is not your games babysitter. And it shouldn't be.

 

That kind of thinking seems to have made Hero into a game with few new players sometime after my primary playing days during the 4e era. Sometime in the 5e era the game became infeasible to pick up from the published material. It may well be good for experienced players. How is it good for the long-term survival and heath of the system?

 

The more options that are available to the game table the more types of games can be played and the better a toolkit the system becomes.

 

That argument is absurd. Here is a system with more options available than Hero: you tell me what you try to do, and I tell you what happens. Sometimes, maybe, I have you roll dice. Or maybe not, it might not be that kind of game. The point is, the very idea of rules-as-a-toolkit implies taking options off the table. It is one thing to argue about what those things should be, but "the more options available, the better a toolkit the system becomes" is self-defeating. I'm also always amazed by how many people argue as though the GM can say "no" to otherwise legal constructs, but not "yes" to otherwise illegal constructs. If the system is to survive, the rules shouldn't aim only to help experienced players who don't need it. They should help the inexperienced who haven't yet decided if they're going to continue playing it.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it again, I have actually thought about writing up a set of fastplay rules for precisely that purpose. There are, however, obstacles to that, not the least of which is that Hero games would doubtless not approve.

I'm not sure you actually understand what is meant by "toolkit"...

[bigbywolfe]

Pretty much all your complaints about Multiform have been leveled at VVPs and even Multipowers by a few extreme fellows. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's that simple. That's the entire point of a Toolkit system.

[ghost-angel]

The rule book is not your games babysitter. And it shouldn't be.

 

That kind of thinking seems to have made Hero into a game with few new players sometime after my primary playing days during the 4e era. Sometime in the 5e era the game became infeasible to pick up from the published material. It may well be good for experienced players. How is it good for the long-term survival and heath of the system?

 

The more options that are available to the game table the more types of games can be played and the better a toolkit the system becomes.

 

That argument is absurd. Here is a system with more options available than Hero: you tell me what you try to do, and I tell you what happens. Sometimes, maybe, I have you roll dice. Or maybe not, it might not be that kind of game. The point is, the very idea of rules-as-a-toolkit implies taking options off the table. It is one thing to argue about what those things should be, but "the more options available, the better a toolkit the system becomes" is self-defeating. I'm also always amazed by how many people argue as though the GM can say "no" to otherwise legal constructs, but not "yes" to otherwise illegal constructs. If the system is to survive, the rules shouldn't aim only to help experienced players who don't need it. They should help the inexperienced who haven't yet decided if they're going to continue playing it.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it again, I have actually thought about writing up a set of fastplay rules for precisely that purpose. There are, however, obstacles to that, not the least of which is that Hero games would doubtless not approve.

The system is designed that when any give Group sits down at the table they can decide what they feel is appropriate and inappropriate to the genre they want to play, a universal toolkit starts wide open - too open - and must be reigned in by the Group to fit their desires.

 

I absolutely have had GMs say yes to "illegal" constructs because it made sense to the campaign at hand. I've had a GM say Yes to a construct in one game and then in the next campaign say No because it failed to help simulate the desired genre.

 

As bigbywolfe notes, I'm not sure you actually understand what is meant by "toolkit".

[bigbywolfe]

The rule book is not your games babysitter. And it shouldn't be.

 

That kind of thinking seems to have made Hero into a game with few new players sometime after my primary playing days during the 4e era. Sometime in the 5e era the game became infeasible to pick up from the published material. It may well be good for experienced players. How is it good for the long-term survival and heath of the system?

 

The more options that are available to the game table the more types of games can be played and the better a toolkit the system becomes.

 

That argument is absurd. Here is a system with more options available than Hero: you tell me what you try to do, and I tell you what happens. Sometimes, maybe, I have you roll dice. Or maybe not, it might not be that kind of game. The point is, the very idea of rules-as-a-toolkit implies taking options off the table. It is one thing to argue about what those things should be, but "the more options available, the better a toolkit the system becomes" is self-defeating. I'm also always amazed by how many people argue as though the GM can say "no" to otherwise legal constructs, but not "yes" to otherwise illegal constructs. If the system is to survive, the rules shouldn't aim only to help experienced players who don't need it. They should help the inexperienced who haven't yet decided if they're going to continue playing it.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it again, I have actually thought about writing up a set of fastplay rules for precisely that purpose. There are, however, obstacles to that, not the least of which is that Hero games would doubtless not approve.

To add to g-a's statement, most of the house rules discussed around here (and there have been many over the years are mostly "illegal" and most of them have 1 or more groups that use them regularly, some for decades.

[PaycheckHero]

The rule book is not your games babysitter. And it shouldn't be.

 

That kind of thinking seems to have made Hero into a game with few new players sometime after my primary playing days during the 4e era. Sometime in the 5e era the game became infeasible to pick up from the published material. It may well be good for experienced players. How is it good for the long-term survival and heath of the system?

 

The more options that are available to the game table the more types of games can be played and the better a toolkit the system becomes.

 

That argument is absurd. Here is a system with more options available than Hero: you tell me what you try to do, and I tell you what happens. Sometimes, maybe, I have you roll dice. Or maybe not, it might not be that kind of game. The point is, the very idea of rules-as-a-toolkit implies taking options off the table. It is one thing to argue about what those things should be, but "the more options available, the better a toolkit the system becomes" is self-defeating. I'm also always amazed by how many people argue as though the GM can say "no" to otherwise legal constructs, but not "yes" to otherwise illegal constructs. If the system is to survive, the rules shouldn't aim only to help experienced players who don't need it. They should help the inexperienced who haven't yet decided if they're going to continue playing it.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it again, I have actually thought about writing up a set of fastplay rules for precisely that purpose. There are, however, obstacles to that, not the least of which is that Hero games would doubtless not approve.

I'm not convinced either of you actually understood my post, but in any event I'm comfortable with that and your uncertainty.

[bigbywolfe]

The rule book is not your games babysitter. And it shouldn't be.

 

That kind of thinking seems to have made Hero into a game with few new players sometime after my primary playing days during the 4e era. Sometime in the 5e era the game became infeasible to pick up from the published material. It may well be good for experienced players. How is it good for the long-term survival and heath of the system?

 

The more options that are available to the game table the more types of games can be played and the better a toolkit the system becomes.

 

That argument is absurd. Here is a system with more options available than Hero: you tell me what you try to do, and I tell you what happens. Sometimes, maybe, I have you roll dice. Or maybe not, it might not be that kind of game. The point is, the very idea of rules-as-a-toolkit implies taking options off the table. It is one thing to argue about what those things should be, but "the more options available, the better a toolkit the system becomes" is self-defeating. I'm also always amazed by how many people argue as though the GM can say "no" to otherwise legal constructs, but not "yes" to otherwise illegal constructs. If the system is to survive, the rules shouldn't aim only to help experienced players who don't need it. They should help the inexperienced who haven't yet decided if they're going to continue playing it.

 

Now that I'm thinking about it again, I have actually thought about writing up a set of fastplay rules for precisely that purpose. There are, however, obstacles to that, not the least of which is that Hero games would doubtless not approve.

I understood your post just fine. I disagree with almost every aspect of it. It you really want me to give a point by point explanation I can, but I doubt there's much point in that.